DAY EIGHT: SATURDAY

So they laid their hopes away

They buried all their dreams about the kingdom He proclaimed

And they sealed them in the grave

As a holy silence fell on all Jerusalem…

Six days shall you labor

The seventh is the Lord’s

In six He made the earth and all the heavens

But He rested on the seventh God rested

He worked ‘til it was finished

And the seventh day, He blessed it

He said that it was good

And the seventh day, He blessed it God rested

—Andrew Peterson

Read Genesis 1:31-2:3

Exodus 20:8-11

Deuteronomy 5:12-15

The Sabbath held the dual purpose of reminding the Israelites that God rested on the 7th day from his work of creation and, also that although they had once been slaves in Egypt, now they were free. Slaves labored endlessly with no rest. But their God had just delivered them from slavery, and they no longer needed to toil and labor 7 days a week. He was not the same as the Egyptian gods they had been subject to for generations. Just as he rested on the 7th day from his work of creation, they were to rest in remembrance of God’s deliverance, care, and protection of them.

This day of rest quite literally set this nation apart from any surrounding nation at the time. “Sabbath observation has no known parallel in any of the cultures of the ancient Near East and is distinctive in that it is independent of any of the patterns or rhythms of nature. A similar term was used in Babylonian texts as a full moon day when the king officiated at rites of reconciliation with deity, but it was not a work-free day and has little in common with the Israelite sabbath.” (IVP Bible Background Commentary, OT).

Read Luke 23:50-56

Jesus died on the day of preparation—the day before the Sabbath. The women who had been following him had stayed, and along with a rich man named Joseph, they laid his body in a tomb. And there he remained on their day of rest.

We don’t know much about this day from scripture. We can imagine what a silent and frightful day that particular sabbath must have been for those who had followed Jesus as their teacher, their rabbi, and their Savior. He’d been not only killed, but crucified. A death that proclaimed to onlookers that this person was not even fit to be considered human. And in his final hours, his disciples deserted him (Mark 14:50).

The disciples could not have seen his humiliating and inglorious death as obedience to God, a vindication of his mission, or a heroic martyrdom. On the contrary, precisely because it was a crucifixion, they could have seen it only as the utter discrediting of his claims before man and God. He had been judged a threat to the state by the secular authorities, but far worse in the disciples’ eyes, he had been condemned by the religious authorities, the guardians of faith and morals, as a blasphemer deserving a godless death. It would be difficult to exaggerate the horror of such an unedifying and irreligious outcome to a ministry in the name of God. (Rutledge, pg. 89-90)

It might be appropriate to sit in silence and sadness today, to try to imagine what Jesus’ followers would have felt like on that Sabbath day. That prescribed day of rest. They would have had no work to busy themselves with, to distract their grieving minds and aching hearts. But maybe they had an inkling of anticipation that maybe something would happen the next day, since the chief priests remembered that while he was alive, Jesus had said “After three days I will rise again,” so they secured the tomb, saying that it was to keep the disciples from stealing his body and claiming he’d risen again. Whatever they thought and felt that day is a mystery to us.

We know that Jesus’ defeat of death was finished on the cross, and he rested on the seventh day. It seems fitting that just as God had rested from his work at the beginning of the world, Jesus would “rest” from his work of re-creation. His death defeated Death, and in him, we have new life. His death also delivers us from slavery to sin (Romans 6:22-23). We do not need to toil and labor to earn God’s favor. We rest in Jesus’ finished work on the cross.

Hebrews 4:8-10 says “For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. Therefore, a Sabbath rest remains for God’s people. For the person who has entered his rest has rested from his own works, just as God did from his.” The author here is referring to “an eternal rest which will be enjoyed by all who have been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ. It is a ‘Sabbath’ keeping that will never end’” (Believer’s Bible Commentary) Copyright © 1989, 1990, 1992, 1995, 2016 by William MacDonald.

The disciples may not have known what was coming the next day as they rested on that Sabbath day. But now we rest from any spiritual striving we might be tempted to because Jesus is our Sabbath. We rest in his finished work on the Cross.